


Children of the Moon

by Irmelin



Category: Fionavar Tapestry - Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: F/M, Yuletide, challenge:New Year Resolutions 2007, recipient:alianora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-31
Updated: 2010-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irmelin/pseuds/Irmelin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They end up together, of course. How could they not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children of the Moon

They end up together, of course. How could they not?  


"I'm not sure we even had a choice," Kim remarks once, months later. Not that either one of them objects.  


He keeps his promise and picks her up at seven that Saturday night. It turns out to be a date that never ends. So little time has passed when they return home, and life moves on around them. They move with it, albeit slowly, almost reluctantly. Even if they were both ready to go home, they left so much behind, and brought even more with them. So how could they ever be with someone else, someone who didn't know. They have been through too much together to ever be apart again.  


They move on. They make a life for themselves, a nice apartment, interesting jobs. It's a good life. And yet...  


She was a Seer, he was a Rider. How could they forget what they used to be?  


They never quite realized how much they had to tell each other. In Fionavar they spent most of the time apart, and even when they were together there was rarely time to sit down and talk. The year they spent at home before was too full of frantic worry about Jennifer, about the world they had left behind, an endless, restless waiting.  


They're making up for it now. They can't stop talking. They talk more than they touch.  


They talk about Paul, who seemed to belong in Fionavar better than anyone else, more at home in a distant world than in the one where he was born, and who managed to thaw a heart of ice, along with his own.  


She tells him about the night her hair turned white, the night Ysanne died and she was left with a heritage she never knew was hers to receive, and couldn't decide if it was a gift or a burden.  


He tells her about the night when so many were lost, when blood was mixed and friends became brothers in Pendaran Wood.  


She thinks about dyeing her hair, but she can never bring herself to do it. It's more than a remembrance, like the green bracelet on her wrist is. It's a part of her, just like the deep scar on Dave's shoulder. Proof of who they are, and what they're capable of. She was a Seer, he was a Rider, and how do you leave something like that behind?  


"I miss the dreams, sometimes," Kim says as she's drying the dishes Dave is handing her.  


"What did you dream about?" Dave turns off the water, and takes care not to clatter with the plates in the sink.  


"Everything. I dreamt the dog, the Tree, the swan. I dreamt the gods. I dreamt the world and everything in it." She wipes the glass carefully and laughs shortly. "Last night I dreamt I had forgotten to buy milk."  


Dave doesn't know what to say, so he stays silent and hands her another glass.  


"I will dream again," she says confidently after a few quiet seconds. "There is need for a Dreamer in this world. Ysanne saw it."  


They talk about Jennifer, who suffered and survived, who fulfilled her ancient destiny and who finally found a happy ending to the story that had been repeated as a tragedy in every world known.  


They talk about Fionavar more than they thought possible, but they never say that name.  


"Maybe we're worried we'll wear it out," Dave suggests when Kim brings it up one afternoon in September when the leaves are shifting colors and there's this one shade of orange in the crown of a large oak tree that is just the color of the wildflowers beside Ysanne's lake. "You know, if we say it too many times it might lose its magic."  


"I don't think it can," Kim says, considering gathering some of the leaves and keeping them. She decides against it. They would only fade, anyway.  


Still, a word doesn't matter. The name is always there, echoing all around them. Fionavar. Fionavar. Fionavar. A name doesn't fade.  


She was a Seer, he was a Rider, and words can't change that.  


They talk about Kevin, Liadon, who didn't change, just came to the end of the road he had been walking all his life, and who gave that life to bring spring to the frozen land of the world that finally understood him.  


He tells her about the night in Failinn Grove, about green Ceinwen and how no man of Fionavar sees the goddess hunt and lives. And that there might be a anduin called Kevin in a land to which his father can't return. She's quiet for a long time and then she smiles.  


"Kevin would have loved that. He'd be jealous as hell, but he would have loved that." She doesn't ask him if he would have stayed if it hadn't been for Ceinwen. Some things are better left unsaid.  


She tells him about Maidaladan, about Midsummer's Eve, a night not meant to spend alone, and bursts into laughter when his eyes widen in surprise.  


"Loren?" he says, looking shocked and intrigued at the same time. "But he's..." he cuts off when Kim laughs even harder. "Besides," he says, suddenly remembering a plan hatched in a crowded auditorium a lifetime ago, "I thought he was your uncle!"  


They never talk about returning. There is where the sorrow lies. It hurts less if they only talk about the things they did, the things they saw, the things they learned. Not about the things they cannot do. Kim gave the Baelrath away. Not that it would make a difference. It was through with her a long time before she took it off. Sometimes she misses the red flame on her finger, and wonder how things would have turned out if she hadn't refused it that one time. But she knows that with it, she never would have been free.  


She was a Seer, he was a Rider, but they are also so much more.  


When he comes back from buying Sunday breakfast she's waiting for him in the kitchen. There's an expression of nervousness and excitement on her face that he recognizes from the night when she dreamt and the Warstone flickered, they night before they left for England. But there is something else this time, contentment, happiness underneath. Before he has time to say a word she walks over to him, talking his large hand in hers and placing it on her stomach.  


"I dreamt her," she says simply.  


He stares at her, almost lost for a moment, not really comprehending what she's saying. Then he closes his mouth, swallows hard and punches her in shoulder, as if she was a member on his basketball team.  


"Nice job, Ford!" A second later he blushes fiercely at his own actions and her laughter. She stands on her tiptoes and kisses him lightly before punching him back.  


"Brightly woven, Martyniuk."  


Much later, they're lying in bed, unable to sleep, unable to even close their eyes.  


"What do we tell her?" Dave asks, his hand resting on Kim's stomach, caressing slowly. He knows it's impossible, but he thinks he can feel the flutter of a tiny heart.  


"Everything," Kim says without a hint of hesitation. "Maybe it'll only be a fairytale to her, so be it. But it will be the most amazing fairytale, the one she'll always remember, the one she'll tell her children and grandchildren." She puts her hand on top of Dave's, intertwining her fingers with his. "We tell her everything."  


She was a Seer, he was a Rider, and nothing will be forgotten.


End file.
